Deductive Reasoning
by Dreaming of Everything
Summary: ShinoHinata. Hinata figures it out before Shino does. Completed oneshot.


**Deductive Reasoning  
****By Dreaming of Everything**

**Disclaimer:** Naruto and all that is related to it is not mine. (Although my computer wants me to say 'Naruto and all that is related to it are not mine,' which sounds **wrong** to me.)

**Author's Notes:** Het this time.

I'm very fond of this pairing, and this insisted I write it. I hope everyone enjoys it! Reviews—especially ones featuring constructive criticism—are highly encouraged!

Please note that this is a **oneshot** and will not be continued past this chapter.

oOoOoOo

Hinata figured out that Shino liked her before he did.

It wasn't particularly obvious—nothing ever was with Shino. He balanced out Kiba's presence on the team, in that way.

But things had changed, in subtle little ways. Hinata wasn't even positively sure of that, but she thought so. It was more an instinct than anything else that tuned her in to it.

It wasn't that they were spending more time together outside of training—but they were. It wasn't that he was opening up to her more—although he was. It wasn't even that he would (nearly) linger when they accidentally touched—but even then, you could see, or imagine that you could see, that he sometimes was.

But there were excuses and reasons that countered those points. Time outside lessons and missions? Teambuilding. Opening up? Natural part of working together so long and so closely. Touches? Easily imagined and over-embellished.

But taken all together, the evidence had some weight to it. And there was something more, something… Indefinable, but definite.

Kiba had probably known before both of them, actually, seeing as he was the most stable person on the team when it came to interpersonal matters, a disturbing thought. The fact that he hadn't told anyone else said a lot about the growing friendship of the three, even beyond missions and romantic relationships.

When Hinata looked up from lunch one day with an expression of surprised, shocked comprehension stamped on her features, all directed towards the currently unaware Shino, Kiba had a fair idea of what she had realized. Shino did not.

Shino had never been particularly in touch with his emotions. Or rather, he would have been, had he admitted he had them. When working with insects, (especially to the point where they lived in and off of you,) the complication and irrationality of emotions were a liability, and the Aburame clan was nothing if not efficient.

Shino had taken that past even his clan's standards, though. And as much as he sometimes didn't believe it, he was as human as anyone else, and still a (remarkably well-adjusted—considering the situation—if emotionally stunted) teenage boy.

Hinata was unaware of her feelings and cripplingly unsure of herself, but she was more emotionally grounded than Shino was, at least, and knew, as a ninja, to believe in what evidence told her. She was also a teenage girl, a demographic who are, by nature, given to thinking about love more than any other group, and probably to an extent that is unhealthy. And so she managed to not completely dismiss the fact that Shino _might_ have a crush on her.

Her! Of all people! When there was a village full of other girls, prettier and more skilled than she was, and even beyond the ninja in their year, more average village girls who would be better than she could ever be. There was Ino, Sakura, Tenten, Temari from Sand, Mayu, Rin… Any number of others she didn't know. Why had he chosen her, from all the others? It was complimentary and strangely unnerving at the same time, daunting.

Hinata could see herself liking Shino, too, as more than a friend, in a way. She had thought only of Naruto, and even then only in a dreamy, impersonal, day-dream sort of way, for so long that it was funny to suddenly imagine dating someone else.

She liked Shino as a friend, certainly. She knew most people found his insects disgusting and the ever-present coat and sunglasses off-putting and rude, but she saw her eyes, byakugan-pale, to be just as disguising as to her true motive as actually physically hiding her face, which was rarely raised high enough that people could see it fully, and just as inhuman.

And he was cute, sometimes, in a shy, stiff, awkward way, getting the hang of his emotional legs as he became friends with Kiba and her. She trusted him to be there when she needed him to be, in a fight, just like she trusted Kiba to be there. She respected Shino for his skill as a ninja and for his slow growth into someone she could trust and someone who trusted her. He had come to rely a lot more on the other two members of their chuunin cell over the years, and Hinata found herself oddly grateful for that, and the fact that he would relax his guard (if not his high coat collar and sunglasses) around them now. He didn't scare her like Kiba did, either, with the obvious crush that had taken _far_ too long to fade.

It was definitely flattering, though, and startled a heady, butterfly-whisper of nerves and tense hope in her stomach. That was maybe more telling than anything else.

Things had changed, with Hinata's realization, and she found herself responding to the not-quite-hints he gave with not-quite-reactions of her own, little actions that almost made it feel as if her subconscious was encouraging the whole thing.

oOoOoOo

Shino's revelation came slower and later than Hinata's, and he realized that had been clueless for longer at the same time that he recognized the mutual attraction, and was promptly embarrassed in the way all teenagers are, but perhaps in a controlled way, the emotion clamped down with iron will and the weight of expectations, tradition and habit.

But he has been getting better at that. He has started to let himself feel and understand, because connecting with his teammates means too much to him to keep himself from doing it. He can validate his reason for befriending with the excuse that it is important for a team to work together, that it saves lives in the field—fact—but he knows that it is not his only reason. He likes the way they treat him, now, like a friend and like a comrade, like someone they trust, even beyond his skills and his dedication to the mission, a more important trust. Sometimes he feels guilty about hoarding that attention, the interaction, when it's not what's generally done and when it is so inimical to everything he's been taught.

But he sees his father, his mother, his siblings and cousins, and sees more emotion in their faces than in his own. Of all the people in the Aburame family, their values stuck more to him than to any other child they had raised. That, more than anything else, gave him the courage to let himself feel, because he knew that it is important.

And he's suddenly realized that Hinata is not more important than a friend, then Kiba, but important in a different way, a… Fiercer way?

'Fierce' is not something that comes naturally to Shino. It is a word applied to lions and to the Inuzuka, to in-your-face warriors, not to insects and in-the-shadows shinobi, (despite what the Inuzuka and Naruto Uzumaki seem to think) and everything about him has always been muted and understated, hidden. Still, in this case, it is what he was feeling. He generally has a good, analytical grasp of his emotions, when he lets himself recognize them at all.

oOoOoOo

Hinata could _see_ herself with Shino in a way she has never been able to with Naruto, and sight is a big deal to the Hyuuga. She can see them going out for dinner, talking, or at least understanding each other, getting along and working together, holding hands—maybe not kissing. The idea alone is enough to make her blush even darker than she normally does. But maybe, eventually…

oOoOoOo

It takes the two of them, Shino and Hinata, a long time to move past that mutual understanding of an attraction to the next step in the relationship. They are both painfully shy in very different ways, and it slows things down. Kiba gets fed up with the two of them pretty quickly. Still, it works for them, and neither match him in outgoingness or methodology, so they choose not to listen with him. He has enough grace to let them do that, but not enough to keep quiet about it.

By the time they actually start dating, nobody is surprised; they'd been building up to it for far too long. Most people approve of the couple, in a neutral way, not that that matters much to either of them. Shino especially is slowly and deliberately his own person.

Their first kiss takes even longer but is well worth the wait.

--End--


End file.
